Stenochiridae is a

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

decapod The Decapoda or decapods, from Ancient Greek δεκάς (''dekás''), meaning "ten", and πούς (''poús''), meaning "foot", is a large order of crustaceans within the class Malacostraca, and includes crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, and p ...

crustacean Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...

s which lived from the

early Jurassic The Early Jurassic Epoch (geology), Epoch (in chronostratigraphy corresponding to the Lower Jurassic series (stratigraphy), Series) is the earliest of three epochs of the Jurassic Period. The Early Jurassic starts immediately after the Triassic� ...

late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''cre ...

periods. It is the only family in the superfamily Stenochiroidea. Fossils of stenochirids are known from

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Classification

Georg zu Münster Count Georg Ludwig Friedrich Wilhelm zu Münster (; 17 February 1776 – 23 December 1844) was a German paleontologist. Biography Münster was born on 17 February 1776 in Langelage, near Osnabrück. In 1800, he reportedly became a Prussian of ...

was the first to publish on fossils of stenochirids, describing several fossil specimens collected from the

Solnhofen Limestone The Solnhofen Limestone or Solnhofen Plattenkalk, formally known as the Altmühltal Formation, is a Jurassic Konservat-Lagerstätte that preserves a rare assemblage of fossilized organisms, including highly detailed imprints of soft bodied organi ...

in 1839, though the family would not be named until much later. He erected the genus ''Bolina'' to which he assigned two species, ''Bolina pustulosa'' and ''Bolina angusta''. However,

Albert Oppel Carl Albert Oppel (19 December 1831 – 23 December 1865) was a German paleontologist. History He was born at Hohenheim in Württemberg, on 19 December 1831. He first went to the University of Tübingen, where he graduated with a Ph.D. i ...

noted in 1861 that this genus name was preoccupied by a cnidarian, and split the two species into separate genera, renaming them as '' Pseudastacus pustulosus'' and '' Stenochirus angustus''. The family Stenochiridae was first established decades later in 1928 by

Karl Beurlen Karl Beurlen (17 April 1901 – 27 December 1985) was a German paleontologist. Beurlen was born in Aalen. He attended University of Tübingen. He completed a PhD in 1923. p. 115-119/ref> Beurlen was a proponent of orthogenesis and saltational e ...

, named after the type genus ''Stenochirus''. Beurlen placed only the genus ''Stenochirus'' into the Stenochiridae, rendering the family

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

. In 1997, Tshudy and Babcock erected the new family Chilenophoberidae, of which '' Chilenophoberus'' was the type genus and three other genera ('' Pseudastacus'', '' Palaeophoberus'' and '' Tillocheles'') were assigned to. In 2013, a study on the

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree or phylogeny is a graphical representation which shows the evolutionary history between a set of species or Taxon, taxa during a specific time.Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, M ...

of lobsters by Karasawa ''et al.'' found that ''Stenochirus'' and ''Pseudastacus'' were

sister taxa In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

, which would make Chilenophoberidae a

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

taxon with Stenochiridae nested within. Because the latter family was named first, Chilenophoberidae became a

junior synonym In taxonomy, the scientific classification of living organisms, a synonym is an alternative scientific name for the accepted scientific name of a taxon. The botanical and zoological codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently. ...

of Stenochiridae. Stenochiridae is the

sister clade In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

to Nephropidae (the family containing true lobsters), and both belong to the

infraorder Order () is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between Family_(biology), family and Class_(biology), class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classific ...

Astacidea Astacidea is an infraorder of decapod crustaceans including lobsters (but not "lobsters" such as the spiny lobster etc.), crayfish, and their close relatives. Description The Astacidea are distinguished from most other decapods by the presence ...

. The

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

below shows the placement of Stenochiridae within Astacidea, from analysis by Karasawa ''et al.'' (2013): The cladogram below shows the internal relationships of Stenochiridae according to Karasawa ''et al.'' (2013):

References

Prehistoric Malacostraca Jurassic crustaceans Decapod families {{paleo-crustacean-stub